Sometimes the relationship cash flow is less about money and more about manual labor. At least that is what the last weekend or so taught me at our place. They talk about making relationship deposits and withdrawals when it comes to happy long term partnerships and sometimes these deposits look like donating your entire weekend to the greater cause for one partner.

You see I have had an office in our house for my business that I have been using the last few years. It has never really functioned very well as an office, however and for the most part I have dreaded being in it. Now that I am working full time as an entrepreneur being in a space that didn’t allow energy to flow and feelings of joy to spring from my heart wasn’t making the grade. In fact I would go out on a limb to say that it was inhibiting my business’ ability to grow and expand to the next level as I desire it to.

So, a week before Christmas I decided to revamp it entirely from head to toe. With the trusted guidance of some friends and colleagues as well as my partner Kim the plan was set in motion. On my own I started measuring, cutting out little miniature furniture and pushing it around on graph paper. I spent a lot of time envisioning what I really wanted the space to look and feel like. Then I broke the news to Kim — as soon as the holidays were over, we’ve got our work cut out for us and I need you to dedicate an entire weekend to helping me make it happen.

It took an entire weekend of 14 hour days of nonstop work as well as another afternoon of prep work, but we did it. I now have a great little office space and am free of tons of stuff we no longer needed. I purged the old archive of great lesbian magazines from our formidable coming out years. Gone are the cira 1993 issues of Deneauve, a plethora of Melissa Etheridge covers on Time, Rollingstone, and more. Even the coveted Time magazine cover with Ellen’s coming out story are history. As I went through all this I discovered it is not because these memories mean any less to me that I tossed stuff. It is simply that there isn’t room for it, all I’m ever going to do is haul it from house to house, and in order to create my dreams I need the space to do it in. So I blessed all this great stuff and sent it on its way to recycling land. Old tax returns and cashed checks from more than 10 years ago were shredded mercilessly. Stuffed animals were donated. It was a huge purge fest and I feel about 100 pounds lighter.

Sometimes I think projects like these are the true test of a relationship. Sure there were a number of joint items to go through in the closet and Kim uses the office space at times as well (usually more when I’m begging her for assistance than anything else) but for the most part the project was all about me. She was 110% on board. She busted her butt and donated an entire precious weekend to the cause. She ran errands, helped me build bookshelves, and carried books and furniture hither and yon between rooms so we had space to work.

At the end of the day no matter who earns what or what the bottom line of the household looks like, it is the willingness to invest sweat equity in each other’s needs and dreams that builds real wealth within a couple.

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Paula Gregorowicz is the Comfortable in Your Own Skin(tm) Coach and you can learn more at her website www.thepaulagcompany.com and blog www.coaching4lesbians.com .

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